A Family Demands Answers

Knife-wielding Man, Killed By Police, Had Troubled History

VERNON — William Kennan hadn't worked in a decade. His once-strong body was riddled with cancer and weakened by congestive heart failure. By the time he called his doctor's answering service Sunday afternoon, he was losing a battle with alcoholism and hoping for a placement at a rehabilitation center in Hartford.

The doctor called back and told Kennan that police officers would soon arrive at his home to take him to a mental health unit at Manchester Memorial Hospital.

Kennan, 39, a father of four, was upset by the news.

He put down the phone and walked out to his van, holding a beer. His wife, Ellen, soon noticed that an Asian sword used for ritual suicide was missing from a display rack in the dining room.

Kennan was dead a short time later -- shot once in the face and twice in the chest by police in the alley beside his house, according to witnesses.

The two Vernon police officers who shot Kennan were placed on desk duty pending the outcome of a review by the state's attorney's office. Officers Gary Jonas and David Hatheway have five years and two years of experience on the force, respectively.

Authorities would not provide a detailed account Monday of the minutes leading up to the shooting. But Kennan's family, gathered at the wood-frame home in an alley off Union Street, said they have already decided the shooting cannot be justified -- even if Kennan was suicidal.

While state police investigated the case, Kennan's wife and brother recalled the psychological morass that gripped the former carpenter and plumber in the hours leading up to his death.

Family members said Kennan was upset that he was to be taken to the mental health unit at Manchester Memorial Hospital instead of the Institute of Living in Hartford. They acknowledged that Kennan had threatened harm to himself -- two witnesses recall hearing him say as much to the officers on the scene -- but said police still should have held their fire.

``My husband wasn't going after them,'' said Ellen Kennan, William Kennan's wife of 12 years. ``They didn't try to reason with him, they just killed him.''

Family members asked why police didn't shoot Kennan in the legs or spray him with Mace, why they didn't try harder to reason with him, or call in a negotiator.

Kennan did have a criminal past, family members say, and though he was known to many Vernon police officers, he was not known to the officers who arrived at the house Sunday afternoon.

Police found Kennan sitting in his van behind his house, drinking the last of several beers. The sword, one of three, was a prized possession, according to family members; no one could touch it.

The officers ordered Kennan out of the van. He complied and walked up the alley toward the front of the house, his sister-in-law, Mary Colmer, said.

``Drop your knife,'' Antwon Barnes, a next-door neighbor who said he was on his back porch when the shooting occurred, recalled one of the officers saying. ``Drop your weapon.''

Either before or after that command, Kennan told the officers that he planned to harm himself, Barnes and another witness said.

Barnes and Colmer said Kennan appeared ready to go back into the house when the first shot was fired. Just inside the door stood his youngest son, 9-year-old Joel, and a grandson, 5-year-old Gavanni.

The State Police Eastern District Major Crime Squad is investigating the shooting. Sgt. Chris Arciero, a state police spokesman, said witnesses are still being interviewed and police are awaiting the autopsy report to determine the number of times Kennan was shot.

State police confirmed that three shots were fired from two officers' guns, with at least two shots striking Kennan. According to police, Kennan refused repeated requests to drop the weapon.

``This guy had a knife in his hand facing the officers, and he was approaching the officers,'' Arciero said.

Police said a suspect armed with a knife can be as deadly as one with a gun.

As the Vernon officers were backed down the alley by the advancing Kennan, they also became concerned for the safety of a crowd of young people that had gathered behind them, Vernon Mayor Stephen C. Marcham said he was told by police officials.

Kennan's criminal record, mostly from the 1980s, includes a conviction for felony assault. Family members say he left all that behind him when he became ill a decade ago. In those days, they said, Kennan was a wild one, tubing down the Hockanum River during a thunderstorm and roller-skating during a hurricane using a sheet as a sail.

On Monday, the family was concerned that Kennan's eldest son, Jeremy, who is in prison for gang-related activities, will not be allowed to attend his father's wake Wednesday or his funeral the following day.

``He's never going to be able to see his father again,'' said Ron Kennan, William's brother.

Family members plan to have an open casket at the wake. They said they want to show what police did.